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Memorial Day’s Opposite:
Warmongers’ Day
by William
Hughes
www.dissidentvoice.org
May 31, 2004
On Memorial Day, the last Monday in May, America honors its war dead. It was first officially proclaimed, on May 5, 1868, by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. It was declared a national holiday by Act of the U.S. Congress, in 1971 (www.usmemorialday.org).
Since then, those in the military who have given their lives in the defense of our nation are recalled by Americans in solemn cemetery ceremonies: they place flowers and flags on veterans’ graves, visit national monuments, enjoy patriotic parades and listen to speeches throughout the land.
Sadly, this year we have added new names to that Memorial Day list. As of May 30, 2004, 810 of America’s finest sons and daughters have perished in the Iraqi War quagmire (www.lunaville.org). We have also wasted $115.5 billions of our tax dollars on this unjust conflict (www.costofwar.com). The number of innocent Iraqi civilians who have been killed by Coalition Forces as the result of the immoral invasion and occupation of that unfortunate country is now put conservatively at 11,046 (www.iraqbodycount.net).
Suggestion: Why not have a day, set aside once a year, for Americans to roast the repulsive Warmongers who have instigated this mess in Iraq? Isn’t it time to mock some of these villains? Don’t they deserve to be pilloried with a national day of their own?
The Warmongers are the conniving characters who got the U.S. into the Iraq War, despite its having little or nothing to do with our genuine national interest. They are also the globalist-oriented intriguers who represent special and powerful interests that have had such a harmful influence, since the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-61), over the public life of our nation. They are the cunning wheeler-dealers -- the political insiders -- the fat cat lobbyists -- who call the shots on Capitol Hill. They are collectively the WIRE PULLERS! They act ABOVE the Republic! (Check out Chalmers Johnson’s The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic, for a more detailed background on these grasping special interests, along with a keen analysis of their M.O., which has compelled the U.S. into building, at enormous cost, 725 military bases around the world.) Johnson is convinced, as I am, that our mindless, reckless Empire-building will lead us down the path of self-destruction, as it once did for imperial Greece, Rome and the predatory, Irish-hating Brits before us.
Some of the Warmongers are key operatives within the “Military-Industrial Complex”; others are front men for “Big Oil”; some are principals of the influential “Israel First Brigade,” and also greedy bankers and CEOs of multinational corporations. A few are just motor-mouthed talking heads, like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and that disgusting Ann Coulter. The latter right-wing crew has made plenty of money with their books, radio and tv shows, fanning the flames for the Iraq war, and for perpetual war too, while our our national treasury sucks up the red ink.
I propose that Halloween, Oct. 31st, serve jointly as Warmongers’ Day. Images of the entire Bush-Cheney Gang should be brought forth on that occasion. It is time for the nation to pay them back, and also their chief collaborators, symbolically at least, for their revolting hawkish schemes. So, let Oct. 31, 2004, be declared as the first “Warmongers’ Day.” Bring on the icons of the War Hawks for a good bashing. The nation needs some therapeutic relief from their evil doings!
On that date, let us particularly remember the Neocons Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, Lewis “Scooter” Libby and Douglas J. Feith, who so vigorously stampeded the U.S. into invading Iraq. And, don’t forget the important roles in this shameful enterprise played by the Congressional war hawks, too, like: Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-CT) and Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA). Media moguls, such as Mortimer B. Zuckerman and Rupert Murdoch, also deserve to be lampooned. Naturally, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Elliott Abrams and Dick Cheney are essential to this kind of event, as is, of course, that amiable dunce, one George W. Bush, Jr.
The Warmongers falsely promised or hyped, in one way or another, that the Iraq War would only be “a cakewalk” for the U.S., and that we would find WMDs in Iraq, and also plenty of evidence that Saddam Hussein had ties to the Al-Qaeda network. They insisted our national security was at risk. They lied to us! They deliberately deceived the American people in every way they could. They deserve our censure -- our condemnation -- our wrath! They have also made the U.S. more enemies in the Islamic World.
It is only fair that the “Poster Boy” for the initial Warmongers’ Day be Perle, “The Mother of All Neocons.” He helped to draft, with other Neocons, that notorious “Clean Break” policy statement for Zionist Israel back in the late-90s. (See, for more information, “Clean Break or Dirty War?: Israel’s Foreign Policy Directive to the U.S.,” 03/27/03, and related material found at: www.irmep.org) The “Clean Break” document ended up being the intellectual blueprint for the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
I suggest that someone take Perle’s photo now for that poster, since he has a tendency to run off to his luxurious villa in the south of France whenever the number of the U.S. war dead rises. Lately, that has been almost every day, (Robert Burns, “April-May Iraq GI Death Toll Tops 200,” AP Military Writer, 05/30/04).
Anyway, what good would it be to celebrate Warmongers’ Day, if there wasn’t a gigantic picture of Richard Perle, that scheming son of Beelzebub himself, to jeer at?
William Hughes is the author of “Saying ‘’No’ to the War Party” (IUniverse, Inc.). He can be reached at liamhughes@mindspring.com. © William Hughes 2004.
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